There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This early talkie suffers from the fact Hitchcock was rather hemmed in by the John Galsworthy play it's adapted from. He wasn't allowed to influence the script it as much as he was later in his career, and so it's not quite as human as you'd expect. And of course some of the characters' attitudes (especially towards women) are very much of their time.As a grim drama, it's not bad at all. It's a decent story with a good old-fashioned moral at the end of it. Edmund Gwenn is an actor I would loved to have seen on stage in his heyday, and his performance is excellent here - it's just a shame it's all-but-ruined by his horrendous Generic Middle Class Industrialist Regional Accent, which seems to be half Yorkshire and half Brummie. There are a couple of interesting moments in terms of filmmaking - the hectic market scene; a cut from what we think is a view out of the window to a poster on a wall; and of course the rather daring (for the time) whip pans in the auction scene. Hitchcock also chooses to have several large chunks of dialogue delivered off screen, too, another in the long list of Voyeuristic Hitchcock Moments.Verdict: If you're looking for classic Hitchcock, look elsewhere. yetanotherfilmreviewblog.tumblr.com

When Alfred Hitchcock made "The Skin Game," he wasn't yet Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense. He was a fledgling filmmaker still learning his craft just as movies were learning to talk. And to make things more challenging, he was lumbered with this yarn, a stuffy story of a socially prominent family versus an arrogant upstart in rural England. Fortunately, the upstart is played to the smarmy hilt by Edmund Gwenn. And one scene -- the auction of a woodland that Gwenn wants to level as a factory site -- is a brilliant exercise in cross-cutting. Otherwise, the escalating battle between old and new money -- culminating in the death of a terrified young bride -- is stiff and clunky No wonder, just putting the performers in proximity to the microphones was an adventure, especially when the setting was a grand old country manse. It's worth seeing if only to appreciate that not every director starts out as a wunderkind.

Being an all-talking motion picture play, with only a minimum of location film, this movie was exactly what early 1930s audiences wanted. It's better than the crudest film from the era, but still technically difficult to watch. The story of feuding clans, written by John Galsworthy ("The Forsythe Saga"), is a good one; and features characters teeming with soap opera possibilities. The battling families are led by Edmund Gwenn (as Hornblower) and C.V. France (as Hillcrist). Interloping Mr. Gwenn is buying up, and industrializing, land. This does not sit well with Mr. France, who has lived in the area for generations.Helen Haye (Mrs. Hillcrist) goes to bat for her side, against Gwenn; she discovers a shocking secret about Phyllis Konstam (as Chloe), wife of John Longden (as Charles Hornblower). The "younger generation" (and probable end of the "Hillcrist" line) is represented by Jill Esmond (as Jill Hillcrist) and Frank Lawton (as Rolf Hornblower); today, this young couple can best be described as "two twits". "The Skin Game" was directed by a seemingly bored Alfred Hitchcock; notably, it was his first film with Gwenn. Repeating their roles from the 1921 silent film version, Gwenn and Ms. Haye do a good job as the main battlers.**** The Skin Game (2/26/31) Alfred Hitchcock ~ Edmund Gwenn, Helen Haye, C.V. France, Phyllis Konstam

This has a bit of the Romeo and Juliet thing going for it. Two families that can't seem to connect. Mr. Hornblower is the scourge of environmentalists, cutting down everything in his path. He does this not just for gain, but to show that he can steamroll his way, defying sentimentality. His foe wants to retain the old ways, which are often just as cruel. The action gets going, down and dirty, over a view that those in the old estate have always enjoyed. Others have talked about the actual plot. What usually happens is that all parties learn something from the outcome of their hatreds. In this movie it escalates, comes to a head, and the hope of the future is in doubt. I guess this is a work by playwright John Galsworthy and follows his work. It is stagy. The acting is quite good as the two adversaries go for the throat, though intermediaries get into the act as well. While I found it somewhat enthralling, the pacing is slow and the movie forces to say, All right. Now what? It still allowed Hitchcock to do some pretty interesting things with the camera.